San Clemente is a military (Navy) island, with active bombardment, etc. It
is also ecologically very fragile. Access is understandably highly
restricted. And I couldn't disagree more with your comment that it was "silly" to
report this rarity immediately -- it was quite a newsworthy event. Many
people subscribe to this listserve because they want to learn, not because
they only want to chase.

KLG

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Ken Burton

Of course, the best way to avoid Elias daily disappointment is to seek pleasure in the mundane. I know most of us do (and I know full well Elias does), but

Message 2 of 4
, Dec 9, 2011

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Of course, the best way to avoid Elias' daily disappointment is to seek
pleasure in the mundane. I know most of us do (and I know full well
Elias does), but some lose sight of the beauty of the birds we see every
day and the interesting things we can observe just by watching them.

>I don't know Ed but surely his initial message was tongue in cheek.
> But regardless. I bird with an assumption that red-flanked bluetails
> (and all types of other goodies) are everywhere. Yet I am disappointed
> daily when I don't see at least one. The truth of the matter,
> probabilities point to more than this one being in California's
> airspace at the moment. It is a Where's Waldo game and it is up to us
> to document their occurrence.
>
> One thing that I occasionally yearn for is having a magic book that
> would tell me how many Bewick's Wrens are within ear shot of me. As I
> do my 8 hour long stationary hawk watches, in the fall for example, an
> individual stealthy bird might call only 6-12 times all day (5
> cumulative seconds/8 daylight hours) and of course I never see it
> because it calls/feeds from within group of mountain mahogany 60
> meters away.
>
> How many bluetails, brown shrikes, arctic warblers, long-billed
> murrelets etc are in CA that this moment? Probably multiples. What
> percentage of birds in Californian airspace at this moment have
> actually been seen in their lifetimes by a human eye or even a birders
> eye who can ID it? Way less than 1%? Probably.... We cover such a
> small fraction of the acreage of this diverse state.
>
> Fun stuff to ponder.
>
> Flock on!
>
> Elias
> Arcata CA/San Diego CA
> Walkie talkie primero 707-633-8833
> Last ditch alternate 559-433-7254
>
>

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